In the manufacture of containers such as aluminum soft drink and beer cans, the tops, or ends of the cans are manufactured in a stamping and scoring operation in a conversion press, where they are provided with beaded rims, "pop-tops", and so forth. The generally flat disc ends are then stacked face-to-face and packaged in paper bags. The bags facilitate transport and handling of the ends and protect them from dirt and other contaminants. The bags are fabricated from a one piece sheet of light weight paper material by joining opposite sides of the sheet to form an elongated tube large enough to enclose the stack of can ends. The bottom of the sheet is folded to form a flap extending radially outwardly from the stack and the top of the wrapper is folded to form a pair of ears extending longitudinally upwardly and radially outwardly from the stack. The wrapped end packages are transported to a seamer apparatus where the ends are joined to filled beverage containers.
In U.S. Pat. No. 3,686,820 to Zenger et al., there is disclosed a system for packaging ends for beverage containers wherein a plurality of ends are in sealed compartments which are interconnected. Zenger et al. employ two continuous strips of a plastic film which are heat sealed around a plurality of ends so that the sealed compartments are gas impervious. In many instances, the container ends are coated with a material during their manufacture and it is desirable to have air contact the container ends after they have been packaged so as to allow volatile portions of the coating to escape from the paper tube.